Survey: Why do you use cygwin?

Lets imagine for a moment that the native Win32 compatibility was perfect. All the modules, all the functionality, they all Just Work.

Would you still want to use cygwin? It cygwin "just" a crutch to get around things that doesn't work natively? Or do you (personally) really need it for something else? Or do you just really like using it? Is it a fix for your Unix withdrawal syndrome?

Or would you be happy to see it gone if it wasn't needed to make certain modules work more easily?

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There are several applications I use in Cygwin besides Perl. X Windows is the most important for work. ssh would be the next important. Having a command line shell to develop with is another. With older versions of Windows, grep was also an important addition. Finally, having a working free C compiler that's a relatively small download is a nice bonus.

From the original post, I did not even understand that Perl was at issue. I do use Cygwin for Perl, but primarily I use Cygwin for UNIX. And I'd say even more than that I use Cygwin for continuous improvement: even if Microsoft magically today made some kind of perfect UNIX compatibility (including perfect Perl and perfect X), I would continue to use Cygwin, because "perfect" is a moving target, and while the Cygwin and open source people understand that, Microsoft does not, and likely never will. I use

--J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers

I need Perl in Cygwin. It's not that I use Cygwin because I need Perl; it's that I need Cygwin, and since I am there I of course need Perl. To me Cygwin is a platform, and it is my platform of choice (although I'd rather choose a completely open source OS).

But it should only be maintained by somebody who is really enthusiastic about it.

For the record, I compile my own Perl everywhere I go, including Cygwin. The days before Perl would compile cleanly on Cygwin out of the box were misery for me. I am

--J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers

Having a single Perl installation where all modules worked would be great. Windows is not as bad as the haters make it out to be.I still wouldn't sacrifice the power of the *nix command line.

I feel that the Windows marketers decided a long time ago to target people that were not interested in how things worked. The number of "us" is far smaller than the number of business people out there that want to point and click. As a result, they invest much more in developing applications that can be controlled th

Lets imagine for a moment that the native Win32 compatibility was perfect. All the modules, all the functionality, they all Just Work.

I don't use native Win32 compatibility, and likely never will except in unusual situations. I don't want to be on Windows if I can help it. I don't use anything Windows offers if I can help it. I can't function without making it look like UNIX.

Would you still want to use cygwin?

Yes.

It cygwin "just" a crutch to get around things that doesn't work natively?

No

--J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers

I currently use MSYS, of the MinGW [mingw.org] stable, for my Unix compatible tools, but if it wasn't for that, I'd be using Unxutils [sourceforge.net] instead.

I've used Cygwin for a while, but there's too much voodoo for my taste. I don't know exactly what it needs to make it work. And sometimes, if it works, it still does the wrong thing, especially for line endings.